News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-01-27

person perish and leave their wealth tc
others"
Substantial comfort VIII not grow
In natures barren soil;
All we can bOast-tl II Christ we know,
Is vanity and toll"
Now l am glad to say-turning a brighter
| leaf in my discourse am glad to say that
| there are a great many people who are wiser
| than those of whom [ have spoken, and they
| are measuring their life by moral and Spir
| itual development. 1t is not egotism for a
MAJ to say: Il am better than / used to
be: my thoughts are purer; l live by the in
| spiration of higher motives; | have by the
| grace of God put down great many of my
evil habits; am better man now entering
| 1887 than when | entered 1S1Ln 1t is
| no egotism for a soldier to say: Il
understand more military ta"tics than when
| I first took up muslet and learned to pre-
sent arms and when was the.pest of the drill
| O:iCer.n 1t IS no egotisn for 4 sailor TO say:
! 81 know more of voyag;ng on the sea and
more of ratlines than l did when l first
| learned to clew down the miZZeu topsail"
| It is no bad thing, no mean thing, no self
| righteous thing for Christian man to say
81 know more about the battles of the Lord
| or can sail better the voyage OF this life
| than when | first entered Christ'S service.
| Why there are people here to-day who are
| mighty for God who once were very weak in
| the Christian life, but they have measured
| lanceS with many q foe and endorsed it.
anvil of calamity. They have come upon
different platform from the one on which
they stood years and years ago. They measure
their life on earth by golden gated Sab
baths and PentecoStal prayer meetings and
communion seasons and baptismal fonts and
haileluiah in the tem1le. Oh how changed
is their life. They have stood on Mount
Sinai and heard it thunder. They have stood
on Mount PiSgah aud looked over into the
Promised Land. They have written over
their life's troubles: Life IS but a moment"
They are only waiting for the gates to open
and the shackles to fall AMI the glory to
begin.
Then notice there are a great many PEG
ple-I wish there were more of them-who
are measuring their life by the amount of
good they can do. John Bradford said he
considered the day wasted in which he did
not by pen or tongue accomplish some good.
l cannot tell how much a man might ac-
complish if he devoted ali his life to right
purposes. l cannot tell. l have not
the mathematical capacity, to make
the calculation, of how many
tears he could wipe away; of how many
burdens he could lift; of how much ignor-
ance he could illumine; of how many outcasts
he could bring back to God. There are men
who have gone their whole life in the right
direction. All their faith all their natural
force all their mental acumen, all their
physical energy, all their enthusiasm of soul
for God, and they climbed mountains, and
they crossed seas and they trudged
deserts and they dropped into martyr graves
waiting for the resurrection of the lust They
measured their lives by the chains they had
broken, by the sorrow they had alleviated
by the garments with which they clothed
nakedness, by the miles they iourneyed
to relieve, suffering of any kind and
of all kinds. That is the way
they measured life. How long have they
lived! Glow old art thou?' How old was
Suffer! How old was Richard Baxter2 How
old was Philip Dodridge? Why, in practical
usefulness they have lived thousands of years
Add ten thousand times ten thousand more
years and you cannot express the time they
lived. Forever. Forever. Forever Add
all the immortalities, all the thousands of
souls they brought to God, add up all the
immortalities. Heaven to Heaven, throne
to thrcne, glory to glory, and make the esti-
mate While that IS So there are persons in
this house who have not yet begun life
We have got to be babes in Christ before
we begin the Christian life. You say you
are so, or you are 60, or you are 20, or you
are 50. My brother, if you are not Chris
tan, you have not begun to live
l do not know what your opportunities
are; do not know what your manners are,
attractive or repulsive; do not know what
your education, elaborate or nothing at all;
but know there is a fell for you to work,
there is soul for you to save, there is an
you have wealth, give it to Christ.
If you have elo9uence, use it
where Paul and WHEREFORE used
theirs, on the side of Christ If you have
learning put it into the poor box of the
worlds suffering. But if you have neither
wealth, nor eloquence, nor learning, you
have a smile with which to encourage the
disheartened, and You have a frown with
which you can blast injustice, and you have
voice with which you can call sinners home
to God "Oh,n says some one, that's
q very sanctimonious view of life My
brother, it is not; it is the only bright view
of lie, and it is the only bright view
of death. do not know how a man can
exist in moment like this--one year gone,
the other come, amid all the solemn sug-
gestions that come to every thoughtful man
and woman-I do not know how one can
exist without trying to make some prepara-
ton for the great future and trying to
offer some repentance for the past.
You compare the death scene of those who
have measured life by a worldly standard
and the death scene of those who have meas
ured life by Christian standard. Quinn,
the dying actor, said: 81 hope this tragic
dignity to the last" Malherbet cried out to
the confessor: ''Hold your tongue,
your miserable style puts me out
of conceit of heaven" Lord Ches-
terrified, when he ought to have been
praying for his SOUL bothered himself about
the proprieties of the sick room, saying:
Give Dayroles chair" Godfrey KnelteT
died while making diagram for his own
monument. Oh, compare such a silly and
horrible getting out of life with the departure
of Edward Payson, who said: THE breezes
OF heaven fan me- L feat in a sea OF
glory!n Or, with Paul, as he said: 81
and now ready to be offered and the time of
my departure is at hand" He was looking
up then through the aperture of his dungeon
and the officers of the law were standing
there looking down in the dungeon, and Paul
said, when they asked him: "Are you ready;
are you ready to go out on the road to Ostea
and be beheaded; are you ready nows" And
the old missionary, Cecreplt with exposure
and hard work for God, looked up and said:
81 am now ready; | am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my departure is at
hand: have fought the good fight, I have
finished my course, 1 have kept the faith;
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown
of Righteousness, and not only for me, but
for all those that love His appearing" Per-
kapS just as grand a deathbed in your own
home. Oh, the measurement of this life
by the worldly standard and the
measurement of this life by the Christian
standard. 1t seems to me to-day is the time
for me to begin to do better, and it is time
do better. The swift years have flown.
The old year has gone, the new year has
come, and for what purpose you and
| have. been launched on this other
year God only knows. And 1 would
like to ask you in this crisis of time, what
is your preparation for eternity. You are
not surprised at the man on the North River
steamboat who, when a Christian man gave
him tract, was very indignant and tore it
up and threw it into the river; but one
word of that tract fell upon his coat
sleeve and he looked at it after the rest
of the tract had flown, and it was that
one word, that broad word, that high
word, that deep word, that long word, 'eter-
nifty" call it backi' said dying woman,
''call it backn 'Why," they said, ''what do
you want to come backF" "Ohn she said,
''call it back-time, tinel call it backIn We
may lose our fortunes and may gain them
again. We may lose our health aud
have it restored again. We may lose
our good name and by a life of virtue
subsequently may restore our good name;
but time gone is gone forever. Now, some
people say they would like to go back again
to bOyhood and live their life over again;
they would do so much better next time. l
would not dare to go back to bOyhO0d as L
an afraid | would do worse than | have
back to boyhOod;7yOfi might do worse than
YOU have done. But we cannot go back. The
future is before us, and / congratulate you,
oh, people of God, l congratulate you that
another year has gone. What does it mean!
1t means nearer home: it means nearer our
Fathers house; it means that you are nearer
The comprehensive of loved ones who have
gone before. Why should you be sad
about thatf When l tell you that your
face ought to be illumined with a great
10Y. Why how strange it is, this fact that
we hang on to this world with so much avid.
ity when there IS much brighter world
ahead, and we ought to be glad that we have
got nearer it. Why not go to the centre
Why stay clear out here on the rim of the
universe! Why not glad we are gOin q nearer
to the centre: We study God here only
nv n Bible DhOtOpraDh Rnt Won know that